Sunday, February 27, 2011

STAY TUNED: BABEL to Launch New Book Series

Within the next 2-3 weeks, the BABEL Working Group will be making a more official announcement regarding the launching of a new book series, Punctum Books, to include our vision statement, Editorial Board, and initial forthcoming titles. In the meantime, here is a sneak preview:

Thanks to everyone for the enthusiasm. Our model will be something like a combination of re.press and Open Humanities Press, with a dash of McSweeney's:

http://www2.mcsweeneys.net/books

As to the two different quotations, from Augustine and Barthes, re: punctum, I will let Nicola also respond to that [the quotations + name were his inspirations], but briefly I can say here that we wanted, as always, a leap from the medieval to the modern [and back again], but also, for me, to invoke the following senses/feelings/atmospheres/intentions for the book series:

punctum *also* meant to silently denote the marks made in medieval mss. to make lines for writing [and punctum books, therefore, as the site of enabling writing]

Augustine:everything is happening *now*writing-as-time/time-as-writinginterrelation between "this time" and "whole time" [with the site/act of writing as the "puncture" of time]